


Healer

by Sita_Z



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Kirk is a linguist, M/M, Matriarchal society, Pre-Technological Vulcan, Vulcan Culture, Yes I wrote Spones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-04 03:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14583843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sita_Z/pseuds/Sita_Z
Summary: The clans of Vulcan, a pre-technological planet, are dying of an unnamed illness. Starfleet sends a team of scientists to their aid, including Dr Leonard McCoy - who certainly never expected to become involved in matters of Vulcan clan honor and marriage.





	1. Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> My first multi-chapter Spones fic, yay! I hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it. Chapters will be posted every two or three days, depending on my editing.
> 
> As always, your thoughts and comments are very much appreciated!

* * *

**_Pre-mission briefing_ **

 

“I don’t understand,” said Dr Leonard McCoy. “Starfleet says no interference, but we’re going to talk to them? How does that work?”

Professor Pike inclined his head to show that the question wasn’t unwelcome. “Not interfering means not disrupting their culture by imposing our knowledge and technologies on them. We can interact with them on their terms.”

McCoy frowned. “And how do we do that? Pretend we’re gods come from the skies in ships of light?”

Pike’s lips twitched, which was just as well. McCoy’s sarcasm wasn’t always appreciated by his academic peers. “More or less, Leonard. Only they would say _rushan_ , not god.”

“ _Rushan_?”

“Spirit of the air,” said Dr. Kirk, a young and annoyingly handsome linguist (McCoy was sure he’d seen him modelling in some fashion advertisement holos). “That’s what they call us, anyway.”

“And I suppose we’re going to give them glass pearls in exchange for their lands,” McCoy continued, his eyes on the briefing screen. The person depicted there could have been a human from a different historical period – clad in the loose, hand-woven robes of the desert, his long hair braided and decorated with carved bone pearls, a tattoo winding around one of his arms like a delicate bracelet – perhaps merely a decorative application, but McCoy doubted it. Those intricate whorls and loops almost looked like writing to him. Kirk would know – he’d studied their language for his dissertation.

The man on the picture could have been human, yes, but only at first glance. Then, you saw the pale green hue of the skin, the slanted eyebrows. The ears. An alien. One who believed that Pike and his team had come from a spirit world beyond, to offer them precious gifts and only take some worthless bits of crystal that lay scattered around their desert plains. Generous spirits indeed.

“That dilithium is theirs,” McCoy said softly. “It’s not right.”

Pike sighed. “Leonard… we’ve been over this. It’s the only way Starfleet will fund another expedition.”

And they don’t need the dilithium, he didn’t say. It’ll be centuries – millennia, perhaps – until they develop warp drive.

_It’s not right._ McCoy looked at the second picture on the screen. Another alien, a child this time, maybe five or six years old. She was leaning against an adult, her eyes half-closed as she gazed past the camera. Her neck and arms were dark green, discolored by an ugly rash that would soon spread to her face and torso.

Kirk had seen the child on his last expedition, had been the one to take the picture. He had told Leonard how she had died, how the clan had sat stone-faced for three days and nights, how they had cut themselves with bone knives and let their blood drip onto the sand next to her still body until it was more green than red….

Kirk was a manipulative bastard, but he’d done what Pike’s nagging hadn’t accomplished – McCoy had signed up for the mission. If he could help these people fight the disease that was claiming so many of them, he’d look the other way when Pike sent out the teams to collect crystals, he’d even sit there and pretend to be a _rushan_ come to hand out gifts from the spirit world.

Because he was a doctor, not a moral judge. And he was the only Starfleet xeno-physiologist who had taken an interest in the case. If he didn’t go, who would?

Kirk set a strange object on the briefing table; a shining metal box the size of a toaster oven, fixed on four legs. On top of the box was a solar panel facing upwards.

“Our glass pearls.” It was said with a side glance at McCoy and a raised eyebrow. “A water harvester,” he explained when McCoy frowned. “It relies entirely on condensation, so there’s no advanced technology involved save the solar panels, and they can’t replicate those. This will save a clan of forty people from dying of thirst during Drought Season.”

And as Kirk had undoubtedly known, there was nothing McCoy could say to this.

 

* * *

 

 

**_Base camp_ **

McCoy had known, in theory, that Vulcan was a desert planet whose temperatures rose far above Earth norms. He had known that the Forge, as humans had dubbed it, wasn’t even the most inhospitable place on the planet – there were animals and plants that survived in that hellhole somehow, as opposed to the equatorial zones which were completely devoid of life.

He still hadn’t expected it to be so unforgivingly, cruelly _hot_.

Some of the team tried to go without ThermoGarb (first-timers, poo-pooing the warnings of their more experienced colleagues). All of them caved within the first day, after spending an hour or two recovering on a cot in the air-conditioned containers that was the camp’s headquarters. Lieutenant Palmer had managed to contract an honest-to-goodness heatstroke after only fifty minutes, and vomited until there was nothing left in her stomach. McCoy cursed, administered sodium hyposprays and handed out electrolyte drinks to anyone around. It had never even crossed his mind to go out into that hellish heat without the cooling cocoon of thermo-regulating clothing. Humans weren’t _made_ to survive under a sun like _Las’hark_.

Their base camp had been there for nearly thirty years, set up by the first human researchers who had arrived on Vulcan. It was situated at the foot of the L’langon Mountains (the Vulcan Himalaya, some old-timers called them), close to a number of rocky elevations. In those hills, well-hidden from the untrained eye, lived the Clan of T’Pau. They had had contact with humans for a long time now, and were used to the strangers coming and going. Sometimes the clan migrated to another location for a while, though it wasn’t clear why. Kirk assumed that it was for some socio-religious reason, while Pike thought that their underground well ran dry periodically, forcing them to move camp. The Clan Mothers had not answered any questions in that regard.

“Not this time, though,” Kirk said. “We’re in luck. They’re home.”

“How do you know?” McCoy asked. He hadn’t seen a sign of life anywhere in the vicinity, if one didn’t count the thorny red shrubs that surrounded base camp, and the tiny black lizards that basked on flat stones in the sun.

“Camp was clean when we beamed down,” Kirk said. “When they’re home, some of them come here once in a while to make sure none of our equipment is buried by sand drifts or knocked over by the wildlife. They brush the sand off our containers, too. We never told them to do it,” he added quickly when he saw McCoy’s frown. “They’ve been doing it for decades now when they find that the camp is empty. Hospitality is central to their culture, and they think of us as their guests.”

“Guests who steal their dilithium.”

Kirk sighed. “I don’t like it either. I’m glad to be back, though.”

McCoy said nothing in reply, and began to set up his medical equipment. Dr M’Benga had provided him with all the notes, pictures and samples he’d taken on his last trip to Vulcan, which was admittedly five years ago. Back then, he’d come across a mere two patients who suffered from the ominous rash. Now, it had spread to all the clans on the continent, and it was killing people.

McCoy was glad to be here, too. He didn’t share the sentiment with Kirk, though.

“So,” he said, taking the screen of his electron microscope out of its transport grate. “When are we going to visit?”

“Visit?”

“You know, go see the clan.”

Kirk smiled. “Oh no. They’ll be coming to see us.”

* * *

 


	2. Visit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your comments! Bones is about to meet the Vulcans...

* * *

 

The Vulcans arrived early the next morning, when the sun hadn’t quite reached its full, brutal potential yet. Lieutenant Palmer spotted them on the horizon, and called out to Professor Pike.

“They’re here!”

Pike seemed excited but not surprised. McCoy assumed that the visit was part of a long-standing protocol the clan had established in their interactions with the _rushan_.

“Turn down the air-conditioning in Unit C,” Pike told one of the lab techs. “Oh, and get the mats. The ones they gave us last time. They’re not used to sitting on chairs and they don’t really like it,” he explained, turning to McCoy. “Using the mats will be received as a sign of respect.”

Unit C was a tent adjacent to one of the larger keluminum containers, and its air-conditioning was precarious at the best of times. Now, it seemed, the humans would be wearing ThermoGarb to meet the Vulcan delegation, who found air-conditioning to be uncomfortably chilly. The techs spread beautifully woven mats on the tent floor, set up trays with glasses and water, cold fruit, and…

“A music player?” McCoy asked.

Kirk smiled. “They love it. I think T’Pau comes here just to hear _Für Elise_.”

They stood outside to welcome the delegation, who approached slowly. They rode on _sehlats_ , furry animals as big as a rhino who looked like a cross between a bear and a saber-toothed tiger. There were three, each with a huge woven saddle on its back and colorful strings braided into its sand-colored fur. Their riders were mere silhouettes against the glaring sky, and only when they had come as close as twenty meters did McCoy realize that all three of them were women.

“They never bring their men on the first visit,” Pike said in a low voice. “It wouldn’t be proper.”

“Do they mind us?” McCoy asked. Except for Lieutenant Palmer, the welcoming committee consisted of Pike, Kirk and himself, all quite male.

Kirk shook his head. “We’re _rushan_ ,” he said with an ironic smile, as if he knew exactly how McCoy felt about the term. “Traditional distinctions of male and female don’t apply to us. It doesn’t hurt for Annie to speak first, though.”

Palmer nodded. “No problem, Jim.”

McCoy watched as the three women brought their sehlats to a standstill and dismounted the great beasts in one fluid motion.

It was difficult not to stare. He’d seen holos of Vulcans, but these were quite obviously leaders of their people, adorned as such. They wore their black hair braided – one woman’s hair had been dyed a striking black and white – and coiled like crowns atop their heads. Intricate forehead tattoos emphasized their slanted brows and gave them an even more forbidding appearance. They wore multi-layered robes of muted pastel tones, designed to keep the heat out and demonstrate the wearer’s wealth. On their arms and the side of their torsos (located over the heart, McCoy realized), they sported reddish plates of armor. All three of them carried weapons he identified as _lirpas_ , which they placed on the ground in a gesture that was clearly ritualistic.

“ _Diftor heh smusma_ ,” the woman with the black and white hair said. The translator, carefully calibrated by Kirk the evening before, kicked into gear. “Live long and prosper.”

“ _Sochya eh dif_ , T’Pau,” Palmer replied. “Peace and long life.”

“My companions and I thank you,” T’Pau said. “We welcome the _rushan_ clan back to the Mountain Plains.”

Pike bowed. “We offer you our water.”

“We accept gratefully,” T’Pau gave the ritual reply.

Pike led the group into Unit C, where the three Vulcans sat cross-legged on the floor mats across from the humans. Their _lirpas_ , McCoy noticed with a guilty trace of relief, had been left outside.

Kirk and Pike seemed familiar with the ritual, pouring glasses of water and handing them to T’Pau first, then to her escort. The Vulcan women drank, and were offered more water. This time, they drank only half, then set the glasses back on the tray.

“We are glad to see you well, _Pid-kom_ T’Pau,” Pike said. “And you, _T’Sai_ T’Les and _T’Sai_ T’Pring.”

T’Les and T’Pring both looked be younger than T’Pau, though it was hard to tell. They inclined their heads in silent acknowledgement, content to let the matriarch speak.

“And you, _rushan dorli_. It appears you have a new face in your midst.”

“This is Dr Leonard McCoy,” Pike said. “He is an accomplished healer, and has come to research the skin fever.”

“Greetings, _hassu_.” T’Pau dark eyes came to rest on him. “We thank you for travelling the long way from your homeworld to assist us.”

Homeworld? McCoy hadn’t expected the woman to use this turn of phrase – spirits of the air, after all, didn’t have a homeworld. Or maybe they did. He knew so little about Vulcan culture.

“I’m happy to help… um, _pid_ - _kom_.”

Kirk threw him an appreciative side-glance, which annoyed McCoy. Just because he’d never been off-planet before didn’t mean he was a complete babe in the woods.

Pike began to pass cold fruit to everyone (T’Pring and T’Les, McCoy noticed, only took their share after T’Pau had made her selection). Kirk offered to play some music, and even though the Vulcans’ stoic faces did not change, there was a distinct air of excitement about them as they accepted. The music was nothing to write home about – a selection of classical and modern-classical pieces – but their visitors seemed entranced. T’Les even began to sway gently to the rhythm, her lips moving soundlessly as she mouthed her own silent words to the song.

Relaxed by the food and the music, the Vulcans seemed willing to depart from the ritual exchange of courtesies and share news about their clan. Pike and Kirk listened and only asked the occasional question. _If you ask too much_ , Kirk had told McCoy earlier, _they clam up and leave. It’s happened before._

“Two girls and a boy have been born to us since your last stay,” T’Pau said. “T’Syr’s husband has given her a daughter. She is healthy and thriving.”

There seemed to be a significance to the name that eluded McCoy. He raised his eyebrows at Palmer, who whispered: “T’Syr is the mother of the girl who died of the skin fever last year.”

“A time for grief,” said T’Pau, who had obviously heard every word. “But we rejoice in the new life that has come to us. And we rejoice in the blessings granted to us by our clan. T’Pring rejoices, too.”

Her cryptic statement was followed by a dark green blush on T’Pring’s part, and an uncomfortable shifting by T’Les. McCoy sensed that T’Pau had just said a lot in very few words.

“I rejoice, _pid-kom_ ,” T’Pring said stiffly, speaking for the first time. “There are those in my house who do not.”

T’Pau turned to the humans. “T’Pring has taken a second husband,” she said. “My great-grandson. A well-bred young man he is, and a good match for her.”

T’Pring’s thin lips and cold stare spoke of another truth, McCoy thought as he watched her. Kirk had explained the complicated structures of clan life to him, and from what McCoy remembered, it was the Clan Eldest who decided about marriage alliances. The Clan of T’Pau was not as strictly matriarchal as those in the north – the humans had never even met the men of these clans, restricted as they were to stay inside their dwellings – but it was the women who were heads of house and made the decisions of everyday life. Who could take two or even three husbands, if their wealth and social status allowed it. McCoy wondered what these three stately Clan Elders would say if he told them that on his homeworld, things had long been the other way around.

“My well-wishes, _T’Sai_ ,” Palmer said into the silence, when it became clear that some reaction was expected. “May your house be blessed.”

“ _Bath’pa’lik, k’ Stonn eh uzh’veh_ ,” T’Les muttered. The translator didn’t pick up the words, but T’Pau’s twitching lips and T’Pring’s glare indicated that whatever she had said, T’Les hadn’t exactly congratulated T’Pring on her new husband.

In a rather obvious change of subject, Kirk asked after the clan’s life-stock. T’Pring seemed only too happy to move on, and began to talk about the new sehlats they had acquired from the Forest Clan, and how they adapted to life in the plains.

Sehlats, it seemed, was an exhaustive topic. The three women described their herd and all its newborn cubs in great detail, and with great pride. McCoy knew that the mountain clans depended almost entirely on the large furry animals for their livelihood, much like traditional Bedouins had depended on camels. Vulcans did not eat meat, but their clothes, mats and tents were made from sehlat fur, they traded cheese and yogurt made from sehlat milk and used the huge beasts for riding and transporting goods. Sehlats were everything to these people, and of course they loved to talk about them.

“We thank you for inviting us once again onto your lands,” Pike said eventually, when there was a lull in the conversation. “We have brought a gift for you that you may find useful.”

Kirk brought out the water harvester and set it down in front of the Vulcans. “It is a device that allows you to gather water from the air.”

T’Pau raised an eyebrow. “This old woman sits and wonders,” she said. McCoy had the feeling that the translator had missed some subtext here.

“It uses the sun’s heat to draw water from the air,” Kirk explained. “All you have to do is let it run during the day. You’ll have five to ten liters in your tank in the evening.”

T’Pau, T’Pring and T’Les stared, then rose as one.

Pike jumped to his feet as well. “ _Pid-kom_ … if we have given offense, we are truly sorry.”

“There is no offense,” T’Pau said softly. “ _Osu_ , custom forbids us to accept such a great gift without recompense. You do not understand what this means to us.”

“Then… you’ll take it?”

T’Les began to speak, but T’Pau held up a hand. “Not today,” she said. “We cannot. But we shall be back, and demonstrate our gratitude to you.”

Pike opened his mouth, and closed it again when Kirk shook his head behind T’Pau’s back. “As you say, _pid-kom_.”

“You and your brilliant ideas, Kirk,” Pike said later, when the three Clan Elders had mounted their sehlats and ridden off into the plains. “I knew the water harvester was too much. Remember the time they gave us five sehlats in recompense? What’s it going to be this time, a live _le-matya_?”

Kirk, relaxing in his sun chair with a can of coke, laughed. “Come on, Chris. San Francisco zoo loved the sehlats. They’ll love the _le_ - _matya_ , too.”

“Not when it mauls the visitors, they won’t,” Pike muttered, grabbing Kirk’s coke from his hand and taking a big gulp. “I wish you’d think before you act.”

“I wish you’d give me back my soda,” Kirk said, but Pike had already left the room to shout at the lab techs.

McCoy sighed and turned back to his med equipment. It was going to be a hard day’s work before he was done.


	3. Gifts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, everyone, for your interesting thoughts and insights!

* * *

The Vulcans didn’t show up for the next three days, and McCoy began to wonder if they were ever coming back. Pike and Kirk seemed quite sure that they would, but maybe Kirk’s offer, which had essentially been an unending supply of water, had scared them off. McCoy could vividly imagine how the news of such a thing would resonate with other clans in the area. Warfare on Vulcan was almost unknown – ever since the time of Surak, the great Preacher of the Plains – but Kirk’s gift might just put peace to the test.

That boy really needed to use his brain before he acted, McCoy thought, ignoring the fact that Kirk was twenty-nine and as such only six years his junior.

He used the time to set up his lab and draw up a testing schedule. It wasn’t an easy task, since he didn’t know how many patients he’d meet – or if, in fact, he would meet any. He could hardly march off to the Vulcan settlement and hand out flyers. M’Benga had done a great job, noting down in painstaking detail how the disease manifested itself, but without current samples of the strain McCoy had nothing to work on.

On day four, McCoy heard two of the lab techs shouting outside, and stepped out of Unit B into the glaring morning sunshine. The heat was like a brickwall in his face. He quickly fumbled for the button on his collar that would activate the ThermoGarb. Cool air began to spread around him, and he sighed in relief.

“Look at that.” Miyashiro, one of the young Starfleet techs, pointed at the horizon. “Looks like the whole clan is coming.”

He was right. The cloud of red dust they had first seen was slowly turning out to be at least a dozen sehlats, their furry heads swinging from side to side as they trudged towards the camp at a leisurely pace. Some of those sehlats carried several riders (McCoy thought he could make out a few children, even), while others were laden with goods in sacks and baskets. As they came closer, McCoy could hear the animals’ good-natured grunts and what sounded like a young child laughing.

“Not the whole clan.” Pike had stepped up beside them, watching the approaching caravan. “But more of them than I’ve ever seen here. And they brought children.”

“It’s an honor and a sign of trust,” Kirk explained. “You don’t take your children to a neighboring clan unless you are a hundred percent sure of their good intentions.”

The sehlats and their riders came to a halt at a distance of about thirty meters. McCoy and his companions watched as the Vulcans dismounted, helping the children out of their box-like saddles and unfastening heavy sacks from the sehlats’ back harnesses. Then the clan began to walk towards them – the women first, resplendent in their gleaming armor and ornate robes, followed by the men in darker robes, leading the children along. The children hadn’t quite adapted the stoic demeanor of their elders yet and stared openly at the strange beings they were about to meet. One little boy put his thumb in his mouth when he met McCoy’s eyes. McCoy waved, and grinned when the toddler waved in reply before hiding behind his father’s robes.

T’Pau came to stand in front of them, looking as regal as she had on the day of the first visit. T’Pring and T’Les stood at a respectful distance, each holding her _lirpa_ with the blade pointing towards the ground.

“We have come to formally welcome the _rushan_ clan to our lands, and to show gratitude for their generosity,” T’Pau intoned. “They have given us a means to provide water for our clan even in times of drought, a gift that will save our sisters’ and brothers’ life, our mothers’ and fathers’ health, our daughters’ and sons’ future. For this, we can never repay them, but we may offer what is ours, and offer it proudly.”

She lifted a hand, and the crowd parted to allow a young woman leading a sehlat to step forward. The sehlat, McCoy saw, was carrying at least a dozen baskets.

“Dilithium,” Pike whispered. “That’s got to be five million credits right there. Where did they…”

“We are aware that your clan prizes the sun crystals above all else,” T’Pau said. “We debated whether to give you twenty of our finest animals instead, but we believed you might appreciate these gemstones more.”

It was delivered with a dry humor that made Kirk smile, and Pike look almost ashamed. “That is… more than generous, _pid-kom_ ,” he said. “These stones will be of great use to us.”

“We know,” T’Pau said kindly. “You may take as many as you please while I am _pid-kom_ of this clan. I cannot make decisions for my successor, but she will surely not turn you away when asked.”

Pike said nothing – thinking, maybe, of the crystals he and his team had taken long before the offer was made. If T’Pau was thinking the same, she was too polite to mention it.

“We have brought food for a feast in honor of your clan,” she said. “If you are in agreement, our men shall prepare everything.”

“Wait,” T’Pring said. “Wait.”

The clanspeople stirred at the interruption. T’Pau turned to look at her guardswoman. “T’Pring?” she asked in a tone that suggested anything but amusement. “What is it?”

T’Pring stepped forward. “I… I wish to give a gift of my own to the _rushan_. To repay them for the great kindness they have shown our clan. _Spokh!_ ” she called in a sharp tone. “ _La iyi!_ ”

The crowd parted again, and this time a man stepped forward. He was in his late twenties, perhaps Kirk’s age. Like all men in T’Pau’s clan, he was dressed in a tunic and a cloak, both of an unobtrusive maroon color and much simpler than the women’s attire. His long black hair was pulled into a braid and held back by a headband. He, too, had a face tattoo like all adult clan members; a delicate band of spiral letters snaking down his left cheek and disappearing under his collar.

 _He looks frightened_ , McCoy thought.

“T’Pring, what is the meaning of this?” T’Pau asked, but T’Pring continued as if the _pid-kom_ hadn’t spoken.

“This is Spokh,” T’Pring announced. “My second husband. He is young and strong, and he shall serve you well. My husband Stonn and I shall miss him sorely, but we are willing to part with him out of gratitude to your clan. He is our gift to you, honorable _rushan_.”

Only now did McCoy notice a second man standing close to T’Pring. He was older than Spock, and dressed in much finer clothing. His face was a study in sanctimony as he watched the proceedings.

“T’Pring!” T’Pau didn’t shout, but it came close. “You forget yourself! _Spokh, plator’a!_ Step back!”

T’Pring grabbed Spock’s arm, keeping him in place. “Was he not given to me as a husband, _pid-kom_? May I not do with him as I please?”

“You may not! You shame our clan before our guests, dragging your family quarrels into the open!”

“And yet a gift that has been given may not be taken back,” T’Pring said. “Honor would be irretrievably lost.”

“You speak of honor!” An older man pushed his way to the front of the crowd. “You have none, T’Pring! For months I have stood by and watched as you and Stonn treated my son like the dirt under your feet! I will not-”

“Sarek!” T’Les pulled the man back. “You forget your place! Be silent.”

“I will not be silent! She cannot give away my son!”

T’Les raised a hand as if to slap Sarek, when Pike (taking his own sweet time, McCoy thought) finally spoke up.

“Look. Look. I’m sorry there has been a misunderstanding, but he – Spock – he can’t stay here.”

The clan fell silent, all eyes on Pike. _Don’t_ , McCoy thought, _don’t go on_ , but of course Pike did.

“There isn’t really anything for him to do here, and…”

“You are refusing him as a gift?” T’Pring’s voice was loaded with tension, as if everything depended on Pike’s answer. She reminded McCoy of a snake watching its prey before the kill.

“I… yes, I’m sorry, but I am. This isn’t-”

 _“Rai, sa-fu!”_ came a shout from Sarek, followed by the sound of a slap.

“No,” McCoy said, speaking directly to T’Pring. “No. We’re not refusing him. Thank you very much, what a thoughtful idea.”

T’Pring didn’t seem to appreciate sarcasm any more than Starfleet scientists did. “You will take him?”

“Yes,” McCoy snapped. “Because I’ve got the feeling that you’re gonna do something even nastier if I don’t, lady!”

“Then… then it is settled.” T’Pring exchanged a look with Stonn, who lifted his chin. “He is yours. I ask of you that you treat him well.”

Stonn snorted in response to T’Pring’s last remark. McCoy glared at both of them, then turned to Spock, who stood there looking lost.

“I can’t re-gift you to any of them, can I?” he asked quietly, gesturing at the assembled clan. “Your father?”

Spock stared at his feet. “No,” he said, so softly that the translator almost didn’t pick up the words. “It would be the same as refusing me, and if you do, I dishonor her and then, by law, she may kill me.”

McCoy bit his lip; he’d suspected as much, but it still shocked him to hear it. He would have loved to grab T’Pring by the throat and throttle her. Instead, he turned away from the staring crowd and motioned for Spock to follow him.

“Let’s get out of here.”

_“T’Pring!”_

McCoy heard T’Pau’s furious shout, but didn’t turn around to watch their argument. He was just about done with the lot of them.

* * *

**Vulcan phrases (based on the Vulcan Language Dictionary at starbase-10.de/vld/):**

_Spokh, la iyi_ : Spock, (come) here at once!

 _Rai, sa-fu_ : No, my son!


	4. Spock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bones gets to know his new charge better...

* * *

 

“So,” Pike said. “So. Let’s consider that a job well done, shall we?”

Occasionally, Pike indulged in sarcasm himself, and McCoy liked him better for it.

“Are they gone?” he asked.

Pike nodded. “T’Pau’s still mad as hell, and Sarek refused to leave until his wife made him go. I promised them we’d look after him.”

They both looked at the young Vulcan man who sat cross-legged in a corner of Lab Unit B. He’d wrapped a blanket around his shoulders against the chill of the air-conditioning, but otherwise hadn’t moved. His face was blank, his dark eyes staring into the empty space in front of him.

“He doesn’t have very high social standing in the clan,” Pike said softly. “I’m not sure why. Maybe because Sarek had him before he became T’Mar’s husband. It’s strange; he’s T’Pau’s great-grandson, after all.”

“He can hear you, you know.”

McCoy got up and walked over to the young Vulcan, sitting down across from him. “My name’s McCoy, Leonard McCoy. Pleased to meet you.”

Spock’s left eyebrow rose by a millimeter. “Are you?”

McCoy grinned at that; he couldn’t help it. “Well, the circumstances might be better.”

Spock inclined his head. “I believe I owe you thanks. You saved my life, Ma’khoi.”

“She wouldn’t really have killed you, would she?”

“She would have sent Stonn to do it. And it would have been her right by law.”

“The hell it would!”

That eyebrow rose again, higher this time. “ _Tha hel_? Your speaking device did not render that phrase into my language.”

“It means… it means she has no right to kill you! What kind of law is that?”

“The law of the clans.”

“Well, to hell with it!”

“I do not know this _hel_ you speak of, Ma’khoi.” Spock pulled the blanket more tightly around his shoulders. “All I know is that I cannot go home. You may keep me here as a slave or turn me out into the open desert. It is all the same to me.”

McCoy sighed; he felt sorry for the guy, and cursing at him didn’t do anyone any good. “Now, first of all, humans don’t keep slaves. Just so we’re clear on that. And no one’s turnin’ anyone out into the desert.”

“What do you plan to do with me, then?” Spock’s dark eyes held his own, and McCoy felt as if the Vulcan was staring into his very soul. “Where do _rushan_ go when you leave? I do not believe that you go into the spirit world, as some say. But where do you go? Do you have a device that makes you disappear so suddenly? Could I use it?”

McCoy stared at the young Vulcan. He’d expected anger, tears of despair perhaps; not a barrage of questions and an almost instinctive insight into far advanced technology.

“Where did you get that idea?” he asked lamely. _No interference_.

“You have many devices,” Spock said. “You have a device to speak for you in my language. You have devices to speak to someone else when they are far away, and you have given my clan a device to turn air into water. If my clan can use that device, then why shouldn’t I be able to use your other devices, too?”

It was logical, and yes, more than McCoy had expected from a bronze-age Vulcan desert dweller. Shame on him.

“You could use some of them, I guess. But you can’t want to stay here.”

“I have no choice,” Spock said softly. “My wife has cast me out, given me as a gift to strangers. I cannot return to her house… and I do not wish to.”

McCoy was glad to hear a trace of rebellion in Spock’s last remark. “I’m not saying you should. I don’t believe she and that… Stonn of hers treated you very well.”

Spock spread his fingers in the Vulcan version of a shrug. “She gave me enough food and clean clothes, and she only beat me when I spoke out of turn. She was not so bad.”

“The hell she wasn’t!”

Spock almost smiled. “ _Hel_ again, Ma’khoi, and still I do not know of what you speak. No matter. I will not return to be Stonn’s co-husband. He beat me whenever he could and I could not retaliate, as he is her favorite. He put a dust adder in my bed one night and it was only my father’s herbal remedies that saved me from losing my foot. I will not go back to live in the same tent as he does. I would rather live with the _rushan_ and use their devices to disappear.”

Spock paused. “Do you need the sun crystals to run your devices? Is that why you collect them in such great amounts?”

McCoy blinked. Spock was drawing logical conclusions at a speed that left him floundering. “Look, Spock… first things first. I don’t think you should go back to those two if they beat and abuse you. You can stay here for now, but we’ve got to work something out. Your father will miss you, won’t he?”

“I cannot live in my father’s tent, not after I have been cast out in disgrace.”

McCoy looked at the unhappy Vulcan face. “That T’Pring really did a job on you, didn’t she?”

“She took her chance. She knew that if you accepted me, I would have to stay with you. If you turned me out, I would die. If you refused me, I would bring dishonor upon her house, which would have given her the right to kill me. In any case, she and Stonn would be rid of me. It was a well-thought-out plan.”

“Well-thought-out, my ass. Cold-hearted bitch.”

McCoy could hear that the translator was mangling his words, which was just as well. There was probably some clan law against calling your wife a cold-hearted bitch, no matter if it was true or not.

“What about your mother, Spock? It’s obvious that women call the shots hereabouts. Couldn’t she interfere on your behalf?”

Spock pulled up the blanket so that it covered his face; a gesture of shame, McCoy realized. “I have never known my mother. I belonged to my father’s wife before I was given to T’Pring.”

Feeling a surge of anger and pity, McCoy spoke before he could think. “Look, you don’t ‘belong’ to anyone!”

Spock lowered the blanket to look at him. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “You are right, Ma’khoi. I do not.”

There really wasn’t anything to say after that.


	5. Blood

Spock spent the night in Lab Unit B, with the air-conditioning turned off for his comfort. McCoy had offered to give him a cot in the team’s sleeping quarters, but it was too cold and Spock seemed glad to be alone for a while.

When McCoy arrived the next morning, he found Spock standing in front of his electron microscope, hands folded on his back as he studied the appliance.

“What does this device do, Ma’khoi?”

“Mornin’, Spock,” McCoy said. “Sleep well?”

Spock turned and frowned at him. “I slept as I always do. What is this device?”

“Not one for small talk, I see.” McCoy sat down in the chair in front of his microscope. “This device allows me to look at things that are too small to be seen by the naked eye.”

“What things?”

“Blood, for example.”

“Blood can be seen by the naked eye.”

“Well, not the components that make up the blood.”

“Components?”

McCoy hesitated, not sure if he was allowed to teach a pre-industrial alien about the existence of the cellular level. “Um… tiny bits and pieces.”

“Like grains of sand?”

“Yeah, kind of…” Well, damn Starfleet and their non-interference policy. McCoy couldn’t ignore the naked curiosity on Spock’s face. “Blood is mostly water, but there are additional substances and cells that carry oxygen to the lungs.”

Spock frowned, and McCoy remembered belatedly that scientific terms probably didn’t translate well into the Vulcan language. “Tiny objects that carry air?”

“Yes, um… think of a sehlat’s fur. It covers the whole animal, but each individual hair is very fine and thin. Cells are kind of like that, tiny components that the body is made of.”

“If that is true for the structure of every object, then… cells must be made of smaller bits, as well. And those bits of even smaller bits.”

_And there you have the atomic level, discovered by Professor Spock in a matter of minutes_. McCoy tried not show how impressed he was. “In a way, yes.”

“How do you look at things in your device?”

McCoy showed him the specimen chamber. “We put them in here, and look at an enlarged image on this screen over there.”

Spock inspected the chamber for a few seconds, then matter-of-factly pulled a knife from a sheath on his belt. “I wish to look at my blood.”

“Spock, no!”

It was too late. Spock had drawn the blade across his palm, opening a cut which began to bleed at once. Green liquid dripped to the floor of the tent.

“Are you crazy?” McCoy pushed his chair back and went to grab a first-aid kit from a nearby shelf. “What did you do that for?”

Spock frowned. “It is only a small cut. Is it enough? Can you show me my blood in your device?”

McCoy could, if only after much grumbling and scolding and treating Spock’s cut with a disinfectant spray. Spock ignored the lecture on health and safety and stared at the screen, entranced.

“These are what make up my blood? They look like the seeds of the _indukah_ tree.”

McCoy looked at the 3-D image of the copper-based R-cells that constituted a Vulcan’s blood. “Yes, they… hold on.”

He frowned at the screen. He’d seen dozens of Vulcan blood samples when he’d studied M’Benga’s research, and something about Spock’s didn’t look right at all.

“What the hell… “

Spock’s blood contained several components McCoy had never encountered before in any of the samples, and his R-cells themselves seemed… changed. Mutated.

_Oh Lord, don’t let him be sick_. McCoy was almost surprised how much the idea shook him. Then again, he’d hate to tell a man who had just lost his home and family that he was suffering from the Vulcan version of leucemia.

However, M’Benga had provided McCoy with samples of a Vulcan dying from cancer, and those cells had looked very different from what he was seeing on the screen. In fact…

“What is it, Ma’khoi? Is my blood not as it should be?”

Damn that Vulcan and his quick mind. McCoy stalled. “Let me run a few tests.”

He programmed the computer to run a DNA analysis and a decoding of all components that made up Spock’s genome, cross-referenced with the sample database M’Benga had set up. This was going to take a few minutes.

“What’s going on, guys?”

McCoy had never been more relieved to see Kirk, if only because his presence made it easier to evade Spock’s questions.

“Spock here thought it might be fun to see his own blood on a screen.”

Kirk glanced at the fresh bandage on Spock’s hand. “You couldn’t have used a hypo?”

McCoy sighed. _God save me from linguists_. “I could have, but Spock had his knife out before I could suggest a less violent alternative. I’m not a butcher, no matter what the techs might say.”

Kirk raised his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, just asking. You’re running a DNA scan, though?”

He frowned at McCoy, but possessed the presence of mind not to say out loud what he was thinking. _Something wrong?_

McCoy shrugged. “Just a routine procedure.”

It wasn’t. Kirk knew it, and it seemed that Spock did, too. They waited in not-quite-tense silence until a signal announced that the analysis was complete.

Rows of data appeared on the screen, as prosaic as any lab test McCoy had ever run. As if they didn’t spell out a biological aberrance, something that every scientist would agree could not be possible.

Kirk’s eyes narrowed as he studied the results. “That can’t be right. The sample was spoiled or something.”

“It wasn’t. I put it in myself.”

“Then something’s wrong with the computer.”

“What is it, Ma’khoi?”

McCoy turned around in chair to look at the Vulcan. “Spock, your mother… you said you never knew her. Did your father tell you anything about her?”

Spock lowered his gaze. The subject seemed sensitive to him. “He never spoke about her, and forbade me to ask. I… I always assumed that he had behaved in an unseemly manner with a woman from another clan, and that she had left me with him after I was born. It is how these things go.”

“I bet it is. And that’s all you know?”

“My father was… disgraced by my birth. His wife T’Mar and his co-husband do not care, but there are others in our clan who mock him for it. And me. Being abandoned by the mother shames both father and child.”

McCoy took a deep breath. “Spock… these tests tell me that your DNA isn’t completely Vulcan. Your mother… she must have been human.” He glanced back at the screen, mostly so he wouldn’t have to look at Spock’s shocked face. “The computer identified her DNA as belonging to one of the members of a former Starfleet expedition. One… Dr Amanda Grayson.”

* * *

Spock sat outside Lab Unit B for most of the day, his back turned to camp as he stared out onto the plains. Kirk went to him at one point with a bottle of cold water, which he took. He didn’t seem interested in talking, though, and so Kirk returned to the unit, shaking his head sadly at McCoy.

“Give him time,” McCoy said. “Imagine you’d just been thrown out by your family and then found out you aren’t even completely human.”

Neither of them could imagine it, of course. In the late afternoon, when _La’shark’s_ worst heat was beginning to wane, McCoy went outside himself. He braced himself for the onslaught of hot air, glad that Spock had picked a place in the shadow of a thorny _shaforr_ tree. Sitting down in the sand next to him, McCoy set down the plates of food he had brought.

“Here,” he said. “You gotta eat something. Don’t worry, I ran the tests. None of this is gonna give you the runs.”

“I do not plan on running anywhere, Ma’khoi. Where would I go?”

_Stupid translator._ “No, I mean, the food won’t hurt your stomach. You can eat it. These are grapes, a type of fruit from my homeworld, and that’s cornbread. Replicated, of course. Doesn’t compare to my grandma’s.”

Why he was telling Spock about his grandma’s cornbread, he did not know, but he seemed to have hit the right note.

“Does your clan worry if you travel so far on your own?”

“Well…” McCoy shrugged. “My mom’s not too fond of the idea, I guess. My dad thinks Starfleet is a great opportunity.”

“What about your wife? Who watches your children when you are away?”

That hurt more than McCoy liked to admit. “I’m divorced. My daughter Joanna lives with my wife.”

“So you have been cast out, like me.” Spock said it matter-of-factly, breaking off a piece of cornbread while he spoke.

McCoy wanted to explain about legal divorce and parental visitation rights, about gender equality and individual freedom, but he didn’t. In a way, he did feel just as ‘cast out’ as Spock.

“I guess. It’s a bit different where I come from.”

Spock said nothing for a while, eating grapes and cornbread in silence.

“Ma’khoi.”

“Yeah?”

“If my mother was… like you, then you cannot be of the spirit world. _Rushan_ do not have blood, and they cannot give their blood to their offspring.”

McCoy sighed. “We’re not spirits, Spock. But you knew that.”

“I suspected it. What are you, then?”

McCoy heard the implied question: _What am I?_ Spock deserved an answer to that one, a real answer. “We are people from another world. You know, a planet a long distance from here.”

“Your words do not translate,” Spock said, his voice colored with impatience now. “I do not understand. Have you come across the Lesser Sea?”

“No.” McCoy looked at the horizon, where a few stars had appeared on the darkening sky. “See those? They are suns far away from here. There are worlds like this one, travelling with those suns. One of those is where I came from.”

Spock frowned. “How? Do you use one of your devices to travel so far?”

“Kind of. We travel in ships.”

“Air ships,” Spock said, as quick to understand as always.

“Starships,” McCoy replied.

Spock pondered this for a moment. “Has my mother left on one of those ships?”

McCoy thought of the picture he’d seen in the data base – an attractive woman in her early thirties with an impressive list of scientific publications and an adventurous glint in her dark eyes. _Spock’s eyes._

“I guess so.”

They sat in silence for a while, finishing their food and watching as _La’shark_ set behind the horizon in the usual fiery explosion of red and orange. At dusk, many animals of the plains left their dens for the first time of the day, searching the sand under the shrubs for food. McCoy watched a large avian sailing towards the mountain range in the distance. It looked like a bird, but Kirk had told him that it was actually a reptile, a fierce miniature Pterodactyl. On windy days, they sometimes circled over the camp and on one memorable occasion, one had dived down and carried off a sample crate left outside by the techs.

This was a confusing world, but mostly, it was simply too hot.

“Let’s go inside,” McCoy said, getting to his feet.

Spock looked up at him. “I shall sit here for a while, Ma’khoi. You have my word that I will not run.”

“You’re not a prisoner, Spock. You’re free to go wherever you like, you know.”

Spock accepted this without comment or indication that he believed it to be the truth. “Thank you for sharing your food with me.”

“You’re very welcome.”

Shortly before he went to bed, McCoy looked outside and saw a dark silhouette huddled under the _shaforr_ tree. Spock seemed to be watching the stars.

Quietly, McCoy closed the door and began to fiddle with the air-conditioning panel. The heat always made it hard for him to fall asleep.


	6. Sarek

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love reading everyone's thoughts and ideas - thank you!

Spock took apart a tricorder the next day, and was in the process of reassembling it when Kirk caught him. Half-amused, half-annoyed (the things were expensive, and Starfleet budgeting notoriously stingy), McCoy and Kirk left him to it. Both of them had noticed how Spock had flinched as if he expected to be struck.

When they returned an hour later, the tricorder sat on the table in front of Spock, looking as if it had never been touched.

“I apologize, Ma’khoi, K’rk. I had no right to touch what is yours.”

Kirk picked up the tricorder. “Look at that. Runs like clockwork.”

“What?” McCoy took it to see for himself. “Like new. How did you do that, Spock?”

“I put the pieces back where they had been,” Spock replied with a shrug.

“You’ve got a real talent there, you know?”

Spock seemed embarrassed. “I’m too curious for my own good, sticking my fingers where they do not belong.”

McCoy sensed that he was quoting someone; T’Pring, most likely. “You’re not,” he said curtly. “Curious people find out how things work. Means you’re smart, is what I think.”

“This one is not. This one is an ignorant and foolish man,” Spock said. A dark green blush had crept into his cheeks, and he seemed hard-pressed not to hide his face. McCoy sensed that there was a cultural aspect to Spock’s words that he didn’t understand, something which was causing Spock great embarrassment – shame, even. He decided to leave it, for now.

“I’m going into the plains to collect a few plant samples,” he said, trying for a nonchalant tone of voice. “If you’re not busy, maybe you’d like to come along. I could use someone who knows their way around the terrain.”

Spock stood up at once. “I know a patch of rare _rrillan_ gourds close by. I will show you.”

Kirk winked at McCoy behind Spock’s back, giving him the thumbs-up. McCoy scowled in response and followed Spock to the door.

“Lemme get my sample kit, Spock. Gourds sound great.”

* * *

Pike hadn’t expected the Vulcans to return any time soon, not after the incident with T’Pring and the tense goodbye that had followed it. It was a surprise, therefore, when two Vulcans approached their camp a few days later, riding on a gray-furred sehlat who was missing one of its tusk-like teeth.

It was even more of a surprise when they saw that both Vulcans were men. McCoy recognized Sarek, Spock’s father, and another younger Vulcan. The younger man carried a child of perhaps two or three in his arms.

“Sarek,” Pike said carefully. “Welcome.”

“I thank you,” Sarek said, taking the child from the other man so that he could dismount. “This is Selken, my co-husband and father to this boy. His name is Kirev.”

Kirev’s eyes were closed, and he didn’t stir as Sarek carefully handed him back to his father. McCoy recognized the tell-tale discoloration on his face and arms, as well as the clammy, unhealthy look that typically accompanied it.

“It is the skin fever,” Selken said, his face rigid. “Kirev fell ill a fortnight ago, and has deteriorated since. He… he will not wake.”

“Please,” Sarek continued. “I will not lie; we have come here without permission. Our clan has been shamed by Lady T’Pring, and our Lady T’Mar does not dare go against the _pid-kom_ ’s wishes to come here. So we left the clan without notice, when everyone was resting. Please… I do not ask that you free my son. Only that I may see him, and that you help this boy, if you can. T’Pring’s shame is not Spokh’s or Kirev’s.”

McCoy could see that it had cost the proud man much to make this speech. The younger Selken seemed less inhibited. He fell to his knees in front of Pike and laid the unconscious boy at his feet.

“I beg you, _rushan_ , save my child. I will give you everything I own.”

Vulcans, McCoy thought, for all their stoic demeanor certainly had a flair for the dramatic. Then, hating himself a little, he walked past the speechless Pike and knelt down in the sand next to Kirev, taking out his scanner and med tricorder.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said with a glance at the diagnostic screen. “He’s stable for now. Why don’t you take him to the med unit, and I’ll run more detailed scans.”

“Kirev!” McCoy hadn’t noticed Spock approach, but suddenly he was there, lifting the little boy into his arms and brushing the sand off the child’s tunic. “Little brother. Fathers, what has happened?”

“Spokh.” Sarek’s face didn’t change much, but there was a world of relief in the single word. “You seem well, my son.”

“I am, Father. My little brother, however, is not. Let me take him inside where Ma’khoi may examine him.”

Kirev seemed right at home in Spock’s arms. He moaned feebly when he was placed on a biobed, turning his head as if searching for the source of warmth that had so suddenly disappeared. Spock brushed his fingers over the child’s too-dry forehead. “Rest, little brother. You will be well.”

McCoy frowned at the data on the bioscreen. “He’s dehydrated, that’s for sure. I’ll hook him up to some fluids – and get a thermoblanket,” he added to a passing tech. “We don’t want the little guy to freeze.”

McCoy felt like he was handling a sick lion cub, his every move watched by three very tense adult lions. Eventually, Kirev’s readings returned to something closer to the Vulcan norm, and the three men, interpreting McCoy’s body language, relaxed somewhat.

“He is better?” Selken asked hesitantly.

“For now. The skin fever has weakened his immune system a great deal. He’ll be okay if he stays in here and gets plenty of fluids… again, for now.”

“You cannot cure him,” Sarek said. It wasn’t an accusation, merely a simple statement. The older Vulcan sought McCoy’s eyes, and his message was clear: _Don’t lie. Don’t get their hopes up._

“No, I can’t,” McCoy said. “Not yet. I haven’t had the opportunity to see many patients with the skin fever. If I did, I might be able to work something out.”

_Might_. There were so many unknowns here it wasn’t even funny. And he was a doctor, not a miracle worker.

Sarek straightened. “Then we shall provide you with the opportunity.”

“Sarek…” Selken’s voice drifted off at a look from the older man.

“Will we let our children die just so the ladies may preserve their pride?” Sarek snapped his fingers in an impatient gesture. “Ma’khoi, what the _pid-kom_ has not told you – what she means to keep a secret from all of you – is that more than a third of our clan lies ill with the fever. The Elders believe it shames us, that the spirits should punish us so. I say, my stepson Kirev has done nothing to merit punishment, nor have the other children who are ill. They should not suffer just so their parents may not lose face.”

“Father,” Spock said. “You cannot bring all the sick ones here. There are too many.”

“Yes, my son,” Sarek said. “That is why we must respectfully ask Ma’khoi that he leave the _rushan_ camp… and accompany us to our home.”


	7. Welcome

Kirk, of course, refused point-blank to stay behind. An opportunity to see the Vulcan settlement came along once in a blue moon, he said, and there was no way he was going to miss it.

“What if the translator breaks down?” he asked McCoy. “You don’t speak a single word of Vulcan, and they know just enough English to say that they don’t understand. You’d be lost without me.”

“What if you fall off the sehlat and break your leg?” McCoy countered, but without much heat behind it. Kirk had a point. Not that he was worried about the translator breaking down, but there might be social blunders he could avoid with the linguist in tow.

Pike wasn’t happy, but agreed in the end, on the condition that they returned within a Vulcan day. “If there’s any sign of trouble – that is, if you see the _lirpas_ come out – you’re beaming out of there. Non-interference is all well and good, but I’m not putting my men at risk.”

“Call me if Kirev’ condition changes,” McCoy said. “Ensign Lachner can look after him for now, but I’d like to be there in case of an emergency.”

Selken had opted to stay behind with his son, while Spock and Sarek accompanied the humans on their trip through the plains. Spock stood very straight as he announced his intention to come along.

“T’Pring cannot object,” he said. “She gave me as a servant to Ma’khoi, and Ma’khoi needs my assistance on this trip.”

“You know that is not how she will see it, my son,” Sarek replied.

“This one finds that he has little interest in the lady’s opinion,” Spock said, then looked somewhat intimidated by his own boldness.

Their sehlat’s name, McCoy learned, was I-Chaya. It meant ‘stomper’, which seemed a rather violent appellation for the mild-mannered old animal. I-Chaya was at least two-hundred years old, and according to Sarek, had belonged to his father and his grandfather before she was passed on to him.

“Men may have one sehlat of their own, if allowed by their wives. But I-Chaya has always been owned by the men in the family,” Sarek said proudly. “She defended Spokh from a _le-matya_ when he was only seven years old. That is how she lost her left long-tooth.”

“Father,” Spock said with a tiny sigh. “Ma’khoi and K’rk are not interested in I-Chaya’s life story.”

“Yes we are.” Kirk grinned from his awkward perch on the sehlat’s large furry back. Sarek and Spock had insisted that the humans ride while they walked, and thinking of the long, arduous trek ahead of them, McCoy was grateful. “Good girl, I-Chaya.”

The sehlat grunted bemusedly at the human hand carding through her thick fur, then seemed to give the sehlat equivalent of a shrug and trudged on.

If camels were ships of the desert, then sehlats were cruise liners. Sitting in the large woven sling that was the saddle, swinging back and forth lazily as the sehlat lumbered on, McCoy was reminded of a gently swaying boat on a calm ocean. The saddle seat even had a canopy top of sorts to keep out the worst of the heat. The sun burned down relentlessly as always, and without his ThermoGarb, he would have melted like a popsicle in the oven, but it was still almost nice. Then Sarek fed I-Chaya some kind of treat, she began to purr, a rumbling vibration from deep within her chest, and McCoy decided to scratch the almost. It _was_ nice.

They crossed the flat plains and followed a dry creek for a while before turning onto a path that led them deeper into the hills. The fauna and flora became more diverse; McCoy saw great orange lizards basking on rocks, crablike creatures disappearing into their subterranean dens when they saw the sehlat approaching, and even, high up on an outcropping in the rockface, a nesting pair of ‘Pterodactyls’.

“ _Lanka-gar_ ,” Spock said, following McCoy’s eyes. “They leave the nest at night to hunt. Their cries are very distinctive.”

As if it had heard Spock, one of the creatures spread its wings threateningly and let out a long and surprisingly melodic hoot. I-Chaya flicked her ears, then continued on her way umimpressed.

Kirk had his camera out and was taking pictures of every rock and shrub. “This is amazing.”

“And hot,” McCoy added, wiping the sweat off his forehead (the ThermoGarb only helped so much). Kirk was right, though; it was amazing. An alien world teeming with life no human had seen before… or at least, very few humans.

The winding path became steeper, and they passed a number of strange rock formations that reminded McCoy of Death Valley back on Earth. After a while, they passed under a rock arch as wide as two houses. Spock and Sarek both touched its surface and brought their fingers to their foreheads, leaving yellow streaks of dust behind. It was a ritual gesture, done with the casual grace of long routine.

“We are almost there,” Sarek announced.

I-Chaya seemed to feel it, too. Her pace picked up, and she grunted excitedly, sniffing the air.

“Soon,” Sarek said, patting her great head. “Be patient, my lady.”

As they had reached the next hilltop, he came to a halt. “Welcome to our home, _rushan_.”

Kirk’s camera was going a mile a minute, but McCoy was content just to look and drink in the exotic sight before him.

The Vulcan settlement was built between the rocky outcroppings of the hills, and merged so perfectly into the surroundings that it was hard to tell where the natural formations ended and the dwellings began. Some tents had been set up under and around rocks, making the most of the space. Others stood on their own, held fast by thick ropes that had been fastened to the rockface. McCoy counted about twenty tents, their sizes ranging from an average RV to a two-story cottage. Some of them were connected through ‘hallways’, canvas tunnels leading from one tent to another.

Sehlats were everywhere, grazing in between the tents and climbing the rocks like goats. In a shady spot under a tree, McCoy saw a mother nursing four cubs. She lifted her head as they passed, blinked and when she had decided that they were no threat, laid back down and closed her eyes.

Sarek led I-Chaya past the tents at the entrance, towards a large open space roughly in the middle of the settlement. As they passed, clanspeople who had been going about their business stopped and gaped openly. A little girl began to cry, and was quickly whisked away into a nearby tent. The Vulcan man who carried her threw a nervous look over his shoulder before closing the tent flap behind him.

“Sarek!” The shout came from the big tent across the village square. Its flap was pushed open, and T’Les stepped outside, closely followed by two younger women. Even for a Vulcan, she looked furious. “Sarek, what is the meaning of this?”

Sarek stood very straight. “I apologize for my absence, Lady T’Les. I have brought the Healer Ma’khoi and his companion to help our sick.”

“You what?” T’Les had forgotten her dignified demeanor. Her voice had assumed an unpleasant shrillness. “Who do you think you are, _sasu_? Running away like a common strumpet, disobeying the _pid-kom_ ’s orders! You have shamed your house and your clan! I have a good mind to beat the insolence out of you!”

She took off her leather belt and was striding towards Sarek when another woman stepped into her path. McCoy had seen her among the visitors at the camp, but she had stayed in the background then. She seemed older than both T’Les and T’Pring, and had a distinct no-nonsense air about her. Unlike the Clan Elders, she wore her hair in a simple gray-streaked braid down her back.

“T’Les,” she said. “Dare lay a hand on my husband, and you will discover my footprint on your rear quarters, by the spirits.”

For a moment, T’Les seemed undecided whether it was worth the trouble. Then she lowered the belt reluctantly. “Where are your husbands, then, T’Mar? I see only one of them gracing us with his presence. Your younger husband must still be out and about, doing as he pleases.”

T’Mar snorted and turned to Sarek. “Are you well, _adun_? Selken and Kirev?”

“They are well,” Sarek replied. “As am I. Kirev is at the _rushan_ camp and has been tended to by their Healer. Selken is looking after him.”

T’Mar closed her eyes briefly, then held out her index and middle finger. Sarek mirrored the gesture in what was clearly an intimate greeting, touching the tips of her fingers ever so slightly.

“I am glad you are back safe,” T’Mar said.

“I am glad to be back, my lady.”

“What sweet words,” T’Les sneered. “He has left without permission and brought the _rushan_ here against the _pid-kom’s_ explicit orders. And he has brought that _mesh’ka_ son of his, too. They should both be thrashed and you know it, T’Mar.”

“You seem very eager to apply your belt, T’Les,” a new voice said. T’Pau had arrived. “And indeed you are right, order must be preserved. Haven’t I heard your husbands scold you just this morning for leaving your clothes lying around the tent?”

T’Les’ face burned dark green. “ _Pid-kom_ , T’Mar and her husbands have gone against your wishes. Surely you can see that.”

“I do indeed,” T’Pau said mildly. “I am not as blind as some of you would have me. And I am very capable of tending to my own affairs. Be silent now, T’Les. Your voice grates in my ears.”

She turned to T’Mar. “What is this, lady? Why do you send your husbands and your little son to travel across the plains on their own?”

T’Mar lowered her head. “My husbands have shown more courage in this than I, _pid-kom_. My son is very ill, as you know. Many of our young lie sick with fever. Sarek left, and I… could think of no reason to call him back.”

“My wishes are no reason?”

“Our children are dying, _pid-kom_ ,” T’Mar said softly. “If there is any chance of help, should we not seek it?”

T’Pau was silent for a long moment. Then she gestured at the humans, who still sat mounted on old I-Chaya (the sehlat had happily ignored the argument going on around her and begun to graze).

“You are here now, that is not to be helped. You may as well see how it is.”

* * *

 

**Vulcan phrases (based on the Vulcan Language Dictionary):**

_sasu_ : man, male

_adun_ : husband

_mesh’ka_ : shamed, disgraced


	8. Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love reading your thoughts!

McCoy sat in the shadow of the largest tree in the village square, content for the moment simply to _breathe_. The sehlat mother with her young had wandered over to share the shade with him. One hand on her big furry head, McCoy watched the four cubs as they rolled around and mock-attacked each other. They didn’t even seem to feel the heat.

It was bad. After visiting more than a dozen tents, taking readings and collecting blood samples, he knew that it was bad, but not hopeless. So far, only two more had died of the fever – a very old man well into his third century, and a baby of four months. The others suffered, especially the children, but they were alive. It wasn’t too late… yet.

He hadn’t been able to do much for them here, except administer hypos to strengthen their immune systems and lower their temperatures. From what he had seen, the Vulcans were doing the best they could under the circumstances – cooling the feverish with wet rags, administering herbal infusions and drawing magical symbols onto their foreheads to keep evil spirits away (which couldn’t hurt, McCoy thought with a shrug).

What he needed to do was get the blood samples back to the lab. Once Kirk was finished talking to the Clan Elders, trying to find out more how the sickness had come about and how it had spread, they needed to get going. Spock had been a great help today, calming the children who were scared of the strange man with his gleaming instruments. He had talked to worried parents and helped store the samples. He’d even administered a hypo or two with almost no instruction.

_Better than some of the Starfleet staff I’ve trained_ , McCoy thought and scratched the sehlat mother behind her big leathery ear. She grunted appreciatively.

A shout close by made him raise his head. Stonn had come out of a tent, dragging another man behind him. His fist clutched the other’s braid, close to the head so that his victim couldn’t straighten up and had no choice but to stumble behind. It was a second before McCoy recognized Spock.

Stonn flung the other man onto the sand and raised a stick. “You come back bold as a sand viper, walking into my lady’s tent! And I find you working evil spells on my child with _rushan_ magic! When will you understand that you are – not – wanted – here!”

“Hey!” McCoy jumped to his feet, but couldn’t prevent the heavy blows that accompanied Stonn’s words. One of them caught Spock across the back, another one on the thigh. Before the third one found its target, Spock rolled away deftly, jumped to his feet and kicked the stick from Stonn’s hands. It sailed across the square and landed in the sand next to McCoy.

“You have used this on me often enough, Stonn,” Spock yelled. “You do not dare confront me without a club in your hands!”

“So the little harlot has learned to fight.” Stonn advanced, panting. “It will be my pleasure to break your ribs with nothing but my hands.”

Spock charged and they went down, fighting with the strength and agility of two large cats.

“Break it up, you two!”

McCoy was trying to think of a way to interfere without losing a finger or two of his own, when T’Pring appeared seemingly from nowhere. She was a far cry from the elegant lady of before, her hair in disarray and her clothing streaked with some kind of dirty fluid.

“ _Kroykah_!” she screamed, and miraculously, both men stopped fighting at once. Stonn knelt in the sand, his lip split and dripping green blood. Spock was crouched next to him, one of his eyes rapidly swelling shut.

“Will it never stop? Must one of you die before this ends? Stonn, your daughter lies ill with the skin fever and I find you brawling with your co-husband in the village square.”

“He is not my co-husband!” Stonn screamed. “Not anymore! You promised, T’Pring!”

“Yes, yes, he is not your co-husband anymore! Now will you tend to our daughter? Is your jealousy more important to you than her life?”

Unexpectedly, T’Pring turned to McCoy. “You, _rushan_ healer! See this?” She spread her gown to show him the streaks. At a closer look, he could see that the darkish fluid was mingled with green. “My daughter vomits blood, and my husbands are outside fighting like rabid sehlat bulls! Spirits, what have I done to deserve this?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, ma’am,” McCoy replied. “I haven’t really been in the situation myself.” Forcing himself to tone down the sarcasm, he continued. “If you allow me to examine her, I’ll see what I can do to help.”

“Yes.” T’Pring seemed to make a conscious effort to calm herself. “Yes. Stonn will show you inside. _Stonn. Now_.”

Stonn clambered to his feet, wiping his bleeding mouth on the sleeve of his tunic. “Yes, my lady.”

McCoy followed him inside the tent. It was large compared to many in the settlement, and furnished with ornate carpets and sitting mats. In the back, an embroidered curtain created a partition, hiding part of the tent from view. After today, McCoy knew that this was the sleeping area, where the head of house, her husbands and her children rested during the night. He also knew that Stonn and T’Pring hadn’t allowed Spock back there, making him sleep on a pallet next to the cooking pots.

Now, Stonn pulled the curtain aside to reveal a big futon bed, heaped with soft woven blankets and pillows. In the middle of it lay a baby girl. She was maybe eighteen months old and unmistakably her mother’s daughter, all large dark eyes and smooth black hair.

“Hey there sweetie.” McCoy smiled at the girl, taking in her clammy skin and the dark green rash on her face and arms. One of the more severe case he had seen today, but not the worst. “What’s your name?”

She whimpered in reply.

“T’Per,” Stonn said. “Her name is T’Per.”

McCoy began to examine the girl. He took a blood sample, administered a hypo, and even succeeded in making her giggle by hiding his face behind one of the pillows.

“Keep her hydrated,” he advised Stonn. “Plenty of fluids. And change her tunic, she’s all sweaty.”

Notably subdued, Stonn did as he was told. He dressed the girl in a fresh linen tunic, lit a perfumed candle and began to sponge the tiny face with a piece of soft cloth.

“She’s cute,” McCoy said.

“She is all I have,” Stonn said dully. “Spokh’s children will not take away what is hers.”

“Right.” McCoy closed his medkit. “Well, I’d best be going.”

It was relief, stepping out of the stifling air of the tent into the sunshine. Spock stood waiting next to I-Chaya. Kirk had climbed into the saddle already, looking hot and exhausted and bursting with excitement. McCoy knew he wasn’t going to shut up for a minute until they had reached base camp.

Sighing at the prospect, he handed Spock T’Per’s blood sample, the last one of the day. Spock stowed it away in the kit.

“ _Sa-fu_.” Sarek had come to say goodbye. Vulcans didn’t hug, but Spock and his father did something which McCoy assumed was the equivalent – they crossed their hands at the wrists and touched like that, palms resting on palms. “It was good to see you.”

“And you, Father.”

“Look after Kirev. Selken and he may return on I-Chaya when the time has come.”

Vulcans, it turned out, weren’t great ones for goodbyes. Sarek stood at the great tree in the village square watching them as they rode off, but no one else seemed to take much notice.

After the last tent had disappeared behind the hilltop, McCoy looked down at Spock, who was walking alongside I-Chaya, his black braid swinging gently back and forth. Different than expected, Kirk was well on his way to falling asleep. Already his head began to nod towards his chest.

“You never mentioned the baby,” McCoy said quietly.

Spock didn’t look up, nor did he pretend not to understand McCoy’s meaning. “I was not allowed to speak to her, let alone touch her. Once Stonn caught me changing her tunic after she had soiled it. He beat me bloody for it.”

“And T’Pring?”

“She left the tent.”

McCoy sighed.


	9. Springs

McCoy stretched, groaning as he felt the soreness spread from all the familiar places across his back. There was that one strand of muscle below his shoulder which always felt like someone had driven a hot needle into his skin. And the _splenius capitis_ , the little bastard that was bound to give him the mother of a headache if he strained it too much.

God, he was getting old.

The results of the day’s research didn’t really justify straining his aging back to its limits, either. Two weeks, and he wasn’t getting any closer to a vaccine, let alone a cure.

Things had looked promising at the beginning. He had identified and isolated the current mutation of the strain pretty quickly, and had been able to work out how it replicated by attacking the R-cells of Vulcan blood. But that was it. There seemed to be no way of stopping it. No matter what McCoy threw at it, the virus went straight for the R-cells, plunging the Vulcan immune defenses into havoc. It was all downhill from there, a long, drawn-out battle between an immune system tough as the desert in which it had evolved, and a virus that simply would not die. For an adult Vulcan, it might be years before they finally succumbed. For a child, not quite as long.

“Kirev is resting quietly.”

McCoy looked up to find Spock standing next to him. “Selken has agreed to take a short nap himself.”

“Good,” McCoy said. Selken was running himself ragged caring for his son. It didn’t help that he was still intimidated by the humans in the camp, and obviously missed his home in the desert. T’Mar and Sarek had come by twice to visit, bringing further sad news. T’Les’ little grandson had died, and his father, mad with grief, had undergone the ritual of blood mourning, cutting himself quite severely in the process. McCoy had given Sarek an antibiotic cream to take back to the settlement in case the wounds got infected.

“Are you unwell, Ma’khoi?”

Trust Spock to notice. “My back’s killing me,” McCoy admitted. At Spock’s look of alarm (God only knew what the translator had made of his remark), he quickly added, “I mean, my back hurts. I’ve strained it bending over that monitor all day.”

“I see,” Spock said. “Perhaps there is a remedy for that.”

“Yep, it’s called exercising more and not gettin’ any older,” McCoy quipped before he realized that Spock had been serious. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

“There is something I wish to show you,” Spock said. “If you will accompany me.”

McCoy was surprised. Spock had never asked him to go anywhere before.

“Okay then.”

Outside, the sun had almost set, casting its last rays over the plains. Even in parting, its heat was fierce enough to make McCoy feel like he had stepped into a hot Georgia afternoon.

Spock whistled, and at once, I-Chaya came lumbering towards them. The old sehlat seemed to enjoy her ‘holiday’ at the human camp and had become quite the favorite with the techs. Only yesterday, Spock had observed that the many treats had notably added to her bulk.

“No saddle?” McCoy asked, watching as Spock climbed deftly onto the animal’s back.

“We do not need it,” Spock said. “I know I-Chaya well, and have ridden her many times without a saddle.” He held out a hand. “Do you trust me, Ma’khoi?”

McCoy took the hand. “Help me up then. Unlike you, I can’t climb walls, furry as they may be.”

Spock pulled him up with enviable ease. “I-Chaya’s flank, while admittedly bulky, is hardly a wall, Ma’khoi.”

“What did I tell you about being literal?”

“That it is not a desirable quality,” Spock repeated dutifully. “I admit I do not understand. Language is a means to communicate, and speaking literally will make sure that we understand each other.”

The sehlat set off in her slow, swaying gait, and McCoy placed his hands on Spock’s waist to hold himself in place. Under the Vulcan’s tunic, he felt wiry muscles and a skin cooler than this own.

“The damn translator takes everything literally, and it creates more misunderstandings than anything,” he said, mostly to distract himself from the sudden and intimate closeness. “Language is meant to be spoken by people, not machines.”

“Without the translator-” Spock used the English word, since his own language lacked an equivalent “-we would not be able to speak at all. Is literal communication not to be preferred over no communication?”

I-Chaya began to climb down a slope, and McCoy was suddenly very aware of how close his crotch was to the Vulcan’s buttocks. “Out-logicked me there,” he managed. “I take my hat off to you, sir.”

“Not literally,” Spock said, and McCoy laughed.

“See? We do understand each other.”

It was almost dark now. Vulcan had no moon, but the lack of industrial smog made the stars shine more brightly than they had on Earth for centuries. I-Chaya, in any case, seemed very sure of herself, navigating the rocky terrain as if she had been doing it for hundreds of years. Which, in fact, she had.

The gentle swaying lulled McCoy into a drowsy state, and he caught himself as he was about to lean his head against Spock’s back. There was an unreal quality to this, riding on an alien beast through this otherworldly landscape… it felt almost like a dream. But the great furry back under him was very much part of the physical world, as was the alien being who steered their mount across the plains with gentle pressure of his thighs.

McCoy cleared his throat. “I hope this great fuzzball knows where she’s goin’, because I don’t have the slightest idea.”

“I-Chaya knows the path well,” Spock said. “She has walked it many times.”

After a lengthy trek across the open plains, a dark silhouette appeared in the distance. Another rock formation, but this one was different from the rolling hills Spock’s clan had chosen as their home. It rose from the sands like a cragged tower, a strange and forbidding thing, particularly at night. The Starfleet team had noticed it before and used it for visual orientation at times, but no one had ever gone there… as far as McCoy knew, that was.

“Vulcan Isengard,” he commented, then added, “Don’t ask.”

Explaining Tolkien to Spock was more than he could accomplish at this late hour.

Obediently, Spock didn’t ask, and instead prodded I-Chaya into a gentle trot. She didn’t seem to need much persuasion, uttering excited grunts as she sped her pace.

“She knows she will find plenty to eat there,” Spock said. Indeed, McCoy noticed that the vegetation was becoming denser the closer they got to the giant rock. It was hard to make out in the starlight, but even its surface seemed to be overgrown with leafy shrubs and small trees. At a cluster of thorny bushes, Spock brought I-Chaya to a halt.

“It is only a short walk from here.”

There was no further explanation. McCoy watched as Spock slid off the sehlat’s back and landed catlike on the sand. He’d probably turn his ankle trying to do that.

Spock held out his hand. “Ma’khoi. Come.”

McCoy sighed, swung one leg over I-Chaya’s back so that he came to sit side-saddle, and carefully let himself drop.

I-Chaya immediately began grazing, chuffing at the shrubs with her nose to find the tastiest morsels.

“You will stay here, my lady,” Spock said to her. “We will be back in a while.”

I-Chaya seemed to have no objections, and they set off walking towards the rock. As they came closer, McCoy noticed a cave at its base, a sloping black tunnel that seemed to lead directly into the ground below.

“Don’t tell me we’re going in there.”

“I will not,” Spock agreed.

“I’m serious, Spock. That looks like the gates of hell right there. There’s no way…”

Reaching into a shallow crack in the rock, Spock took out a wooden torch and struck it against the rockface. Sparks flew, and the torch caught fire as if he had held a match to it.

“This place, _hel_. You must tell me about it one day.”

“I’ll be sure to do that,” McCoy muttered as he followed Spock into the cave. The tunnel turned out to be a lava tube, its once rough surface polished by centuries of winds and sandstorms. Someone had fastened torches into crevices in the walls, and Spock lit each of them as they walked, illuminating their dark surroundings.

“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me where we’re heading.” McCoy frowned at a string of symbols someone had carved into the wall. They looked ancient and somehow unsettling.

“We will be there in a moment.”

The tunnel made a sharp bend, and quite suddenly fell away completely. They were standing in a huge hall, as high as a cathedral and twice as wide. Spock’s torch provided just enough light for McCoy to make out a multitude of rock pools, some small, some as large as a swimming pool. They were situated on various levels, connected by an abundance of little waterfalls. Steam rose from their glittering surface, and McCoy only now realized what he was seeing.

“Damn. I had no idea you had hot springs on Vulcan.”

“The water is heated by lava that flows underground,” Spock said. “It is… a pleasant pastime to come here.”

“I bet.” As if on cue, McCoy’s back gave a twinge. “Well then. Last one in’s a rotten egg.”

The translator mangled that one beyond hope, of course, but McCoy didn’t care. Spock guided him down to a pool he said was ‘favored’ by bathers, and lit a few torches situated around it. Then, quite matter-of-factly, he began to undress, placing his clothes on a nearby rock.

McCoy tried his best not to stare. Spock had the well-muscled body of someone used to manual labor, but in a lean, Vulcan sort of way. The light from the torches threw his alien features into sharp relief. McCoy had never made a difference between males and females in his bed partners; there was a certain type of person that attracted him, and Spock, unfortunately, was exactly it. He had noticed this before and quickly suppressed the feeling before it could take hold, but here, in this dimly lit cave and faced with the casual nakedness Spock was displaying, McCoy didn’t stand a chance.

Well. Maybe his advancing age would serve as an advantage for once, and he would make it into the water before anything… came up.

Spock didn’t seem perturbed by McCoy’s hasty undressing and the rather undignified splash he made when getting into the water. He himself slid into the pool without so much as a noise, doing a few lazy strokes before coming to rest at the pool’s edge.

“The heat should soothe your back,” he said. “I always find it helps.”

McCoy allowed himself to relax; the water hid a multitude of sins. And Spock was right, his back was beginning to feel better already. “Do you come here often? Your clan, I mean?”

“The ladies do,” Spock said. “We men may accompany them sometimes.”

Maybe it was the day’s exhaustion that loosened his tongue, maybe the fact that he was sitting naked in a pool of blissfully warm water. In any case, the question was out before he could think.

“Don’t you get sick of it sometimes?”

Spock raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, Ma’khoi?”

Now he couldn’t go back, and he didn’t really want to, either. Spock was too fine a person to live like this. “Letting them dictate your lives. The women, I mean.”

“It has always been so. Men have always deferred to women. It is natural, is it not?”

“On my world,” McCoy said, “men dictated women’s lives for thousands of years. It’s only in the last few centuries that things have changed.”

“So the women are in power now?”

“And the men,” McCoy said. “We’re equals.”

Spock raised an eyebrow. “It must be very interesting to live on your world.”

McCoy grinned. “It can be.”

Spock was silent for a while. “So… your wife… she took no other husbands?”

“Nope,” McCoy said. “We didn’t have that kind of arrangement. It’s okay for some folks, but I don’t like to share, and neither did she.”

“I never liked Stonn as a co-husband,” Spock said after a pause. “And he hated me. I was sorry for it; at first, I had hoped we could become friends.” He looked across the water at McCoy. In the dim light, his eyes seemed completely black, with no discernible iris. “Many men do. Some become lovers and share a bed even when their lady is gone. I wish…” He trailed off.

McCoy reached out until he found Spock’s hand in the water. “What, Spock?”

“I wish I could have that,” Spock said softly.

McCoy hadn’t intended to kiss him then; he hadn’t intended to kiss him at all, but there he was, placing a careful and very gentle kiss on those Vulcan lips.

Spock blinked. Then he raised two fingers, index and middle, and touched them to McCoy’s lips. “That is what we do.”

“It’s different,” McCoy said. “Nice.”

“Yes.” Spock took both of McCoy’s hands in his. “And now, we stop speaking.”

* * *

Later, much later, McCoy floated on his back, staring into the darkness where he knew the ceiling of the great cave to be. He wasn’t going to leave here, ever. And neither was Spock, for that matter. Kirk could come once in a while to bring them food, but he’d better keep his visits short. And no camera. Yes, that was a good idea. Just stay here forever in this wonderful warm water and-

“Blood.”

McCoy lost his buoyancy and sputtered as his head dipped briefly under water. “I beg your pardon?”

“Blood,” Spock repeated. “That is where the sickness is.”

“Spock, I appreciate a bit of tasteful morbidity as much as the next man, but-”

Spock snapped his fingers, impatient with McCoy’s post-coital slowness. “The skin fever, Ma’khoi. It lives in their blood. None of your people have fallen ill, so it cannot live in yours.” He looked at McCoy. “I am… in between. Do you think it can live in mine?”

And just like that, he had given McCoy the answer.


	10. Recovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, everyone, for reading and commenting!

Kirev stirred. His eyes opened slowly, blinking in confusion as he took in his strange surroundings and the whirring, beeping things at his bedside. When his gaze fell on Kirk, his face crumpled and he began to cry.

“Father! A monster!”

“You often get that reaction?” McCoy asked Kirk as they watched Selken hurry to his son to comfort him.

“Har har.” Kirk rolled his eyes. “It’s the blond hair. They’re not used to it.”

“You keep telling yourself that.” McCoy joined Selken at Kirev’s bedside. The boy looked decidedly unwell, riddled with green pustules and pale enough to pass as a little ghost. The data on his bioscreen, however, told a different story. The virus ravaging Kirev’s immune system was fighting a losing battle, and finally, after many all-nighters and set-backs, McCoy could breathe easily.

They had done it. Pike wanted to give him full credit, but really, it had been Spock’s doing as much as his own. He had stayed up late with McCoy, had provided sample after sample of his blood (extracted with a hypo, this time, not a knife), and had brought McCoy food and coffee, insisting that he eat. And of course, it had been his idea in the first place. His ‘in-between’ blood had actually contained the cure that neither Vulcan nor human blood could provide.

 _“Humans produce natural antibodies – a substance that kills the skin fever in our blood,”_ McCoy had explained to Spock, on that memorable night when he had realized that they had finally made the breakthrough. _“We can’t give our antibodies to a Vulcan, though. They’re too different. Your antibodies, on the other hand… they’re hybrids, much like yourself. They’re in-between. The Vulcan immune system doesn’t reject them.”_

Spock had understood immediately, and had also understood that they couldn’t give the serum to Kirev before many more tests had been run. This morning, after long deliberation, McCoy had finally decided to try it out. And here Kirev was, clinging to his father and sniffing pitifully as he allowed himself to be cuddled and petted.

“ _Hassu_.” Selken got up from Kirev’s bed and came to stand in front of McCoy. His eyes were decidedly green and watery. “You have saved my son. I do not know how to thank you. You truly are a _ha’su_.”

McCoy’s face grew warm. “It’s really Spock’s blood that did it.”

At that, Selken fell to his knees, grabbed Spock’s hand and pressed it to his forehead. “ _Spokh_ , stepson. What I own is yours.”

Spock looked very uncomfortable (McCoy sympathized; Selken could be a bit of a drama queen). “I am glad my little brother is better, stepfather. We shall not mention it again.”

“Father!” Kirev whined. Selken climbed to his feet, brushed down his tunic and wiped off his tears in a rather prosaic gesture.

“I am coming, my son. As I have told you, he is not a monster, only a _rushan_ with strange hair.”

Spock was holding the hypo that contained the serum, turning it from side to side.

“Ma’khoi."

“Yes?”

“How soon can we make more of this and take it to my clan? There are many children who are grievously ill.”

McCoy’s back ached worse than ever, and his eyes burned from the lack of sleep. But a smile came surprisingly easy. “Get out the coffee then, darlin’.”

* * *

They set up a tent in the middle of the village square. The Clan Elders provided everything that was needed – benches, mats, even a low table for McCoy’s equipment. Water, that most precious good of the desert, was drawn up from the well and hauled over in flasks and buckets, and every hour or so, a Vulcan man came in and set down another dish of lovingly prepared food. Soon, McCoy thought he might be sick if he had another piece of _kreylah_ or _mashya_ casserole, but the village men found an aficionado in Kirk, who was happy to eat everything set in front of him.

Some of the sick were too ill to walk, and had to be carried in by their families. McCoy placed each of them on the biobed they had set up, took their readings and determined the dosage needed to rid them of the virus. Many of their Vulcan visitors were very curious, inspecting the equipment and staring at the scan images on the bioscreen. The men tended to stay in the background, however, and only came forward reluctantly. Recalling some of his conversations with Spock, McCoy guessed that open curiosity was not encouraged in Vulcan males.

They were given many gifts, some of them alive (Kirk had counted six sehlats and four _jarel_ horses; the San Francisco zoo administration was going to have a party). Thankfully, no one tried to give away any husbands this time.

T’Les came carrying her youngest granddaughter, a girl of four whose hands had been wrapped in strips of linen to keep her from scratching at her rash. The Elder was too worried to even glare at Spock as he placed the girl on the biobed. Her anger over insolent Sarek and his _mesh’ka_ son seemed forgotten.

“Will she recover, _Spokh_? Tell me it is so.”

“She will, Lady T’Les,” Spock replied with a respectful bow of his head. “Ma’khoi is drawing up the serum just now.”

“You have done a great service to your clan,” she said. “The _pid-kom_ says so, too. You deserve to be honored, _osu_.”

Spock blushed at the honorific. “The honor belongs to the healer.”

Even so, many of the clan seemed to share T’Les’ opinion. They weren’t quite sure what the _rushan_ healer had done, save waving his instruments and muttering over strange images on his wall slate. They did understand that the cure for their illness had come from Spock’s blood, and even the women bowed to him to show their gratitude. McCoy was happy for him (and thought it was great fun seeing him squirm. Spock was in fact quite a shy and private person, who hated being the center of attention.)

As evening drew near, families settled on the sand of the village square for their end-meal. It wasn’t much different from a great picnic, cooking fires flickering and plates being passed back and forth. Kirk was in his element. He praised an _ameelah_ cake here, tried a cup of _k’vass_ there, and seemed euphoric to practice his Vulcan with actual native speakers. McCoy noticed one of the younger clanswomen watching him avidly, and raised an eyebrow.

“Careful there, kid, or you might end up as a husband before you know it.”

Kirk glanced at the clanswoman, who quickly turned her head away. “Could be worse. I like the ears.” He grinned at McCoy. “What’s not to like, right?”

McCoy scowled for effect, but it was okay, really. Kirk had found out what had happened at the hot springs, and after he’d gotten the you-dog routine out of his system, he told McCoy that he was a lucky bastard.

_“Just don’t tell Pike, or he’ll have your head.”_

McCoy was only too happy to follow his advice in that regard.

A sudden silence drew his attention away from the conversation. The chatter and occasional subdued laughter around them had ceased, and people were moving to make way for a woman and a man. McCoy wasn’t too surprised when he recognized Stonn and T’Pring. Stonn’s father had come by earlier with T’Per for her treatment. The old man had looked quite ashamed that it was him bringing his granddaughter rather than T’Per’s parents, and disappeared as soon as the girl had received the serum.

No, McCoy wasn’t surprised to see them, but he wished they had stayed away. Spock had a good thing going here, and these two would only remind him of bad times. He deserved a few happy hours in the company of his clan without their interference.

T’Pring came to stand in front of them. Her face was a mask of tension. She seemed to be very aware of the crowd who listened to every word.

“ _Spokh_ ,” she said.

Spock had stood up at her approach. “My lady T’Pring.”

She gestured, and Stonn reluctantly came forward.

“Your co-husband wishes to tell you something.”

Stonn didn’t seem interested in telling Spock anything, but it was obvious that he had no choice. “I give you thanks for saving my daughter, Spokh. And… and I apologize for my behavior towards you.”

Spock inclined his head. “Thank you. I am glad T’Per will recover.”

“Spokh,” T’Pring said. “I know now that we have treated you unfairly. You were a faithful and obedient husband, and did not deserve to be cast out. But I could no longer bear Stonn’s jealousy and your constant fighting, and so I thought it would be for the best.”

Stonn opened his mouth, but T’Pring silenced him with an abrupt gesture. “I have come to tell you that of this moment, you may return to my tent as my husband. Stonn has been punished for his cruelty against you, and has sworn to treat you with the respect that befits a co-husband.”

Stonn glared at his feet, but said nothing.

“Spokh?” T’Pring held out her hand, extending two fingers. “Let us go home, _adun_.”

McCoy suddenly felt quite empty. Part of him wanted to smack the self-righteousness off her face. Another part, the one that understood just how different this world was, knew that she was offering Spock a future, something McCoy couldn’t provide. Stonn might not like it, but after Spock had saved the clan’s children including his own daughter, he would not dare return to his abusive behavior of before. All Spock had to do was touch his wife’s fingers and agree.

“Well?” T’Pring asked. “Do not be shy, husband. We are willing to take you back.”

Finally, Spock stirred. He did not touch her fingers, folding his hands behind his back instead. “That is generous of you, my lady. However, I must decline.”

“What?” T’Pring lowered her hand. “Spokh, do you understand what you are saying?”

“Very much so, my lady.” A trace of ice laced Spock’s tone now. “I am neither foolish nor ignorant, and I understand. Better, perhaps, than you.”

“The insolence!” T’Les jumped to her feet, only to be silenced by T’Pau.

“ _Kroykah_ , T’Les. Let him speak. He has been silent for too long, I believe.”

Spock continued. “You have given me to the _rushan_ , and I find that I prefer their company over yours. They do not beat or insult me, and what is more, they give me opportunity to ask questions and learn so that I may understand.”

“It is improper for a man to ask questions,” T’Pring said. “And what is there that you needed to learn?”

McCoy hadn’t meant to get involved, but the words slipped out before he could stop them. “Oh, I don’t know… how to cure a bunch of kids of a fatal illness, maybe?”

T’Pring glared. “You really mean to live a life shunned by your clan, among strangers?”

“He is not shunned.” Sarek had gotten to his feet as well. “I do not know why you say so, Lady T’Pring. Spokh is honored above all others today, and will always be welcome in our tents, no matter where he chooses to live.”

No one contradicted him, not even T’Les.

T’Pring spat on the ground in front of Spock. “Do as you wish then, _sasu_. But do not expect me to make the offer again.”

Spock inclined his head, unfailingly polite. “I understand, my lady. Good day.”

T’Pring turned around and left, followed by Stonn, who had brightened considerably.

“Then he will not be my co-husband?” McCoy heard him ask, and T’Pring’s angry reply: “Obviously he will not! Shut your mouth, _duhik_.”

Spock sat down again. He looked quite unperturbed, as if he had not just turned away a Clan Elder and the offer of a safe and prosperous home, as if it didn’t concern him in the slightest. McCoy knew better.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

Spock’s eyes were unsure. “I do not know,” he admitted. “Perhaps I should have gone with her. I do not really have anywhere else to go.”

McCoy reached over and put his hand over Spock’s, squeezing gently. “Yes,” he said. “You do.”

**Vulcan expressions:**

_hassu_ : doctor, healer

 _ha’su_ : angel (Thank you to Xaif for that wonderful play on Vulcan words!)

 _mesh’ka_ : disgraced

 _adun_ : husband

 _sasu_ : man, male

 _duhik_ : fool


	11. Beginnings

From: Starfleet Command

To: James T. Kirk, Ph.D.

Subject: Proposal Approved

 

Dr Kirk,

We are happy to inform you that your grant proposal (re Project V-Beta II) has been processed and approved by the board. The Starfleet Science Division looks forward to cooperating with you in this undertaking.

It is our understanding that your last expedition to Vulcan has resulted in the acquisition of dilithium at an estimated value of 5 233 450 credits. In light of this development, Starfleet has decided to cooperate with the TerraPower Syndicate to fund your planned research project.

Details of this intended cooperation will follow.

Admiral J. Komack, Operations Division

* * *

From: jkirk@starfleet.lingdep.com

To: lmccoy@starfleet.meddep.com

Subject: YES!

 

Hey Bones,

Just got the news, the proposal’s been approved! They’ll fund a new research station that’s permanently staffed, including a medical team – yes, that means you get to stay on that hot hellhole of a planet. I know you won’t be the only one happy to hear that ;).

Oh, and they’ve found an official title for Spock - ‘indigenous representative’. Now don’t pull that face (I know you are!). It makes the board happy, and he can keep on helping us out like he’s been doing, anyway.

How are things back at the camp? Did you manage to contact the Forest Clan as we planned? If you did, make sure to send me those language files! I know, the approval means I’ll be back in a few months, but I need the files for my book _now_ , so don’t forget, Bones, ok?

Oh, and one more thing – Pike’s not coming back. He signed up for an archiving project ( ~~desk job~~ ), says he wants to spend some time planet side. So don’t kill me or anything, but Starfleet’s given me command of the new station. _Enterprise_ , they’re calling it. As long as they fund our research as promised, they can give it any fancy name they like, I guess.

Gotta get going, Bones – don’t forget those files!

See you on Vulcan :)!

Jim

* * *

From: lmccoy@starfleet.meddep.com

To: jkirk@starfleet.lingdep.com

Subject: Re: YES!

Attached: lang.file.forestcl.alpha, lang.file.forestcl.beta

 

Jim,

Files are in the attachment – Spock managed to record about twenty-five different speakers. Hope it helps; he busted his ass getting them to talk, those Forest Clan folks are as close-mouthed as Aldebaran shellmouths.

I guess congratulations are in order. Got some Saurian brandy for when you get back, to drink to your promotion and the approval. Good to hear we’re not closing shop, even if it is hot as hell down here.

Spock’s got a gift for you, out of gratitude and to honor you as our new leader, he says. I’m not telling you what it is, only this – turns out I-Chaya is not too old to be a mom, and one of the cubs was born with white fur. A lucky omen, or so the Vulcans say. Anyway, Tiberius is waiting for you at the camp :).

T’Pau was back a few days ago to give us an update (and see her great-grandson, though she’d never say so). As you know, Spock and the Elders have been helping us distribute the serum to uncontacted clans in the area. Looks like Sarek played a major role in convincing them that it’s medicine and not ‘spirit poison’; that one’s got some real diplomatic talent, even T’Les admits it. Anyway, people are getting better, and there haven’t been any reports of new outbreaks in six weeks.

I know you love gossip, so here goes: T’Pring got married again. Her new second husband’s only seventeen years old, a boy from the _Suk-tauk_ Clan, and Stonn… well, you can imagine. He refused to attend the wedding ceremony, and shouted at T’Pring until she used her belt on him. Can’t see that going well in the long run.

Spock’s had some news too. Yes, it is what you think. After you talked to her at that linguists’ conference, Grayson got in touch. Spock’s been rather quiet these days. I believe he’s trying to figure out what to do. Whatever he decides, he knows I’ll support him in it.

That’s it for now, I guess.

We’ll see you soon, ‘Captain’ Kirk (I know you like the sound of that!).

Best,

Leonard

* * *

 

 From: lmccoy@starfleet.meddep.com

To: agrayson@starfleet.alumni.com

Subject: Greetings

Attached: picture file: s’chn.t’gai.spock

 

Professor Grayson,

I am composing this letter with the help of my friend McCoy, as I am not quite familiar with your alphabet and your messaging devices yet. He is recording my words as they are spoken.

My lady, I have received your message and wish to thank you for it. I also received your apology and accept it most willingly, although there is no need for it. After years of silence, my father has finally spoken to me about you, and the circumstances of your acquaintance and departure. He told me of the time the two of you spent together on my world, that my birth was neither expected nor thought possible. Despite all difficulties, he remembers you fondly, so why should I bear a grudge? My father has always proven to have exceptionally good judgment.

You expressed the wish to know what I looked like. McCoy has made a picture of me as I stand next to my father’s sehlat I-Chaya and her cubs. He is sending it to you with this message. He also showed me a picture of you. We do not look very similar, although it seems that I have inherited your eyes.

My lady, you have asked my permission to come to my world and see me. It is not Vulcan custom for a woman to seek a man’s approval of her decisions, but McCoy assures me that it is appropriate in this situation. My answer is yes. I would like for you to come and see me, and I would like to show you where I live and work and learn.

It would be an honor.

Your son

S’ch’n T’Gai Spock

 

 

The End…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …or not. As some of you pointed out in your comments, eleven chapters are not enough to tell everything there is to tell about this universe, and you’re right :). I’m currently writing a sequel in which I’m trying to pick up some of those story lines, and explore the now-established relationship between Spock and Bones.
> 
> I usually never post a story before it is finished, but I may make an exception this time, as I’ve got the plot planned out and quite a few chapters written already. (Planning’s all good and well, but when the characters decide to take the story into a different direction, there’s little the writer can do^^).
> 
> So if you’re interested in more of “Spokh and Ma’khoi”, keep an eye out for that sequel. I may have to write another chapter or two before I feel comfortable posting, but it should be up at some point within the next one or two weeks.
> 
> Thank you very much for reading and for taking the time to engage with the story! Reading your comments is always a delight, and I appreciate every single one of them.
> 
> LLAP!
> 
> Sita


End file.
